Rate My Professor Michael Bruenig

Professor Michael Brünig serves as the Head of School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Queensland (UQ), a role he assumed in 2016, with an interruption from 2019 to 2021 when he led UQ’s Business School. He holds a Master of Science (coursework) and a Doctor of Philosophy from Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany. Brünig began his career in research and development in the automotive industry in Germany and Silicon Valley, United States. As an executive manager at CSIRO, he led the initiative to establish a $140 million National Research Flagship on Digital Productivity and guided the merger that created Data61.

His research specializations include research translation, innovation, change management, building high-performing teams, entrepreneurship, research commercialization, data innovation, robotics, wireless sensor networks, terahertz technology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems. At UQ, under his leadership, he created UQ Ventures and UQ Innovate to foster entrepreneurship, initiated UQ Cyber, the National Industry 4.0 Energy Testlab, the AI Initiative, and the Queensland Government AI Hub, and shaped the curriculum with programs such as the Bachelor of Computer Science, Master of Cyber Security (based on the US National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education framework), the first full online Master of Business Analytics, and the Graduate Certificate in Clinical Informatics and Digital Health. He serves as a non-executive director on multiple boards and technical advisor to start-up companies in Australia. Key publications include “Terahertz nanoscopy: advances, challenges, and the road ahead” (Guo et al., Applied Physics Reviews, 2024), “Terahertz in vivo imaging of human skin: toward detection of abnormal skin pathologies” (Qi et al., APL Bioengineering, 2024), “Estimating fire weather indices via semantic reasoning over wireless sensor network data streams” (Gao, Bruenig, and Hunter, International Journal of Web and Semantic Technology, 2014), and “DTLS based security and two-way authentication for the Internet of Things” (Kothmayr et al., Ad Hoc Networks, 2013). His work has been cited over 2,000 times.